A season full of ups and downs ended on a significantly sour note on Thursday night for the Northwestern men’s soccer team.
The No. 3 seeded Raiders fell in a penalty kick shootout to No. 6 seeded Doane in the quarterfinal round of the GPAC tournament, ending their season abruptly.
At the end of regulation, the score was 2-2. Golden goal overtime did nothing to solve the deadlock, and the game went into a best-of-five shootout.
As the game began, NW looked to be the sharper squad. Sophomore forward Leo Sanchez scored a half-volley bouncing ball from a Nick Hengst header in the 18th minute. It was Sanchez’s first goal of the 2012 campaign.
Doane made their lone shot of the half count, and equalized in the 35th minute.
NW got seven shots off in the first half as they were able to keep possession of the ball.
In the 64th minute, freshman forward Tukker Bogaard beat a Doane defender to have a one-on-one opportunity against the goalkeeper. He calmly slotted the ball into the back of the net to give the lead back to NW, 2-1.
The Tigers sensed that their season might be slipping away, and turned to a more attacking style. This opened the game up for both teams.
After a failed clearance attempt bounced around off many players in the box, Doane found yet another equalizer in the 70th minute to knot the contest up 2-2.
Both squads had many more chances in the second half. NW released 12 shots in that half alone, but only one challenged the Doane goalkeeper. Doane totaled seven shots, including a long-distance attempt that rattled off the crossbar to keep the game at a stalemate.
Both teams had opportunities to end the game denied in two overtime periods. NW’s best chance came off the foot of junior defender Harri Edwards.
When the shootout arrived, both teams placed each of their five shots on net. It only took one save by the Doane netminder to give the Tigers an upset win.
Sophomore midfielder Gabriel Goncalves led all players with seven shots. Junior midfielder Travis Sytsma, senior forward Jono Taves, Sanchez and Bogaard each added three.
Not including penalty kicks, NW created 30 chances, but only nine of them were on target.
Freshman goalkeeper Austin Stoez had two saves.
